On Dec. 3 and 4, Parkland High School’s choirs held their annual winter concerts.

Among the high school’s many music offerings, the choir program holds the largest number of students and various ensembles.

The high school’s choirs include the Beginning Chorus, Mixed Chorus, Concert Choir, Vera Voce and Chorale.

Beginning Chorus, Mixed Chorus and Concert Choir are non-audition choirs featuring various grade levels.

Vera Voce, one of Parkland’s two audition choirs, is a women’s choir consisting of only treble voices.

Finally, the most selective of the choirs, Chorale, is an audition-choir consisting of mostly upperclassmen recognized throughout the state.

Together, these choirs held two successful winter concerts.

Beginning Chorus, consisting of freshmen who exclusively participate in choral music programs, performed a repertoire consisting of four songs of various origin.

The students performed “Aya Ngena,” “Cantate Domino Omnis Terra,” “One Million Voices” and “African Noel.”

Several of these songs featured student musicians playing the piano and various percussion instruments as well as soloists.

The Beginning Chorus’s challenging repertoire encouraged them to widen their horizons in their first year of high school choir.

The Mixed Chorus, consisting of sophomores and freshmen in chorus as well as other instrumental ensembles, also performed four songs.

Their set consisted of “Nox” from Illuminare, “Set Me As a Seal,” “Hanerot Halalu” and “Sizalewe Indodana.”

All of these songs also included students playing percussion instruments and four different student pianists.

Together, the Beginning and Mixed Choir concluded the evening with “Sing We Now of Christmas,” a holiday song featuring members of the Parkland High School Band.

The Parkland High School Chorale performed on both the third and the fourth, singing three songs from their repertoire, including “Hope” and “Hentakan Jiwa.”

For their third piece, they performed “Veni, Veni Emmauel” at the underclassman concert and “Funky Driedl” for the upperclassman concert.

In addition to Chorale, Parkland’s select women’s choir, Vera Voce, performed in the upperclassman concert.

They performed four pieces, all composed by women, including “Fly,” “Uzaugo Liepa,” “We Remember Them” and “Sigua.”

The night continued with a performance by the Concert Choir, consisting of juniors and seniors.

Their performances included “In Meeting We Are Blessed,” “The Word Was God” and “Veni, Emmanuel.”

Finally, the evening concluded with two combined pieces featuring both Vera Voce and Concert Choir.

These songs, “Love’s Pure Light” and “Hallelujah Chorus,” were both holiday pieces that left the audience in the holiday spirit.

Parkland High School’s choir concerts weren’t just enjoyed by parents and families of the students involved – members of the Parkland faculty as well as several Parkland community members attended the concert to experience an evening of holiday performances.

In addition to the Parkland community and families, these concerts are highly anticipated by members of the choir as well.

Vera Voce secretary, Grace Liersaph, said, “I always look forward to our choir concerts. It’s amazing to hear our hard work come together and to see the audience’s reaction to our music.”

The students’ love for performing in their choirs and the success of these concerts speaks to the incredible choral music education programs provided at Parkland High School.